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Older grad earns GED

• An Albany octogenarian readies for a college education in computer studies.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — Arthur Jones doesn’t quite fit the typical image of an octogenarian.

He e-mails. He buys computer parts, puts them together and donates the finished products to those in need. He goes to class.

On Friday, the 83-year-old student, dressed in cap and gown, received his GED certificate from Albany Technical College, where he worked toward the high school equivalency diploma for a few years.

Jones was the oldest to graduate Friday, though others in their 80s have earned GEDs and graduated from Albany Tech, said college spokeswoman Kathryn McPhail. Jones was one of 422 students eligible to march in Friday’s graduation ceremony, said Shakira Sampson, registrar assisant at Albany Tech.

“I see so many youngsters not going to school, and my grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” Jones said Friday morning, “that I think it’s a nice time to set an example, and also, to encourage my wife.”

Jones and his wife began working toward their GEDs together and passed the first part of the test. Sadly, Ida Pearl Jones died of a brain aneurysm in July 2006. The couple had married during a family reunion in 1995.

“She died that summer, so I’m finishing for myself and for her,” said Arthur Jones, a small-framed man with graying hair and beard, blue eyes and a firm handshake. On Friday morning, he was comfortable in dark jeans and black cowboy boots, a belt with a rodeo-style buckle, a striped blue shirt topped with thick-strap bright navy suspenders and eyeglasses with a slight cornflower tint — not quite what one might expect of an older gentleman, but then ...

Umar Abdal-Aquil, 57, has been tutoring Jones mostly in math and reading for three years.

“He had energy like none of the instructors were used to,” the tutor, who has been involved with adult literacy and education for 30 years, said of Jones. “He’s very forward, he asks a lot of questions and he knows what he can do.”

It was 1943 when Jones, a New Jersey native whose parents were sharecroppers from Thomaston, joined the U.S. Navy.

“I was in World War II, and I didn’t go back to school and I joined the service,” said Jones, who was a ship’s cook.

After the Navy, Jones joined the U.S. Army, where he was a radio operator with a field artillery group in Japan. Jones, then a private first class, left that branch in 1946.

“I went back home to New Jersey and went to ... automotive trade school,” he said. Decades later, Jones retired from the United States Postal Service. “After that, I got married.”

Armed with a GED, Jones has already signed up for the Computer Information Systems associate’s program at Albany Tech.

“I build computers now, but I think I’d like to learn in more detail,” said Jones, whose careers have mostly been technical in nature. “God’s given me a gift, and I think I’d like to share my gift with other people.”

Jones said Friday morning that he was excited about the evening graduation ceremony and his upcoming college education. Still, “I just wish my wife was here to see it. I know she would (be proud).”

At graduation, Jones expected to be surrounded by family, friends and fellow members of the Emanuel Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

“He did all the work. He’s been an inspiration to me,” said Abdal-Aquil, who shared that his pupil wrote a book based on his family history and is at work on a second. “The commitment is to excel. ... He mirrors what can happen with a sense of purpose.”

Abdal-Aquil joked with Jones that “there’s no crying for old men,” but added that he’d understand if they shed a few tears.

“It’s a great day for Arthur and a commitment to family from the way he looks at it,” the tutor said. “There’s never been a brighter day.”

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